Lawyer Thomas Farrell has made a career defending crooks in trials. He has never realised that there is a downside to his success, until he meets the dancer Vicki Gayle. She makes him decide to get a better reputation. But mob king Rico Angelo insists that he continues his services.

A film that might be regarded as Nicholas Ray's farewell to Hollywood (if not commercial filmmaking), as well as his tribute to Chicago in 20s, this 1958 feature is also one of his most affecting love stories. An unlikely alliance between a crippled and crooked lawyer (Robert Taylor) and a dancing showgirl (Cyd Charisse), both of whom try to escape the power of a tyrannical mobster (Lee J. Cobb), forms the basis for a flamboyant poem in delirious color and scope that is treated with a mixture of violence and lyricism that is unique to Ray.

在《阿飛正傳》愛過、痛過、反叛過之後，尼古拉斯．雷執導了。這部被喻為他最具感染力的愛情電影。二十年代的芝加哥，瘸腿律師（羅伯特．泰勒）遇上美艷舞孃（賽德．查里斯）……兩個本來不可能遇上的人，卻因為要逃避一個黑幫惡漢（李科布）而情牽一線。尼古拉斯．雷在這部一九五八年黑色電影中，繼續發揮他的看家本領，把浮誇色彩、浪漫意境及詩意暴力共冶一爐，叫人看得嘖嘖稱奇。影片更影響了日後的美國黑幫電影，哥普拉的《教父》和狄龐馬的《義膽雄心》都難免有《派對女郎》的影子。